SHOCKONOMICS

Real extremism? Look at the Democrats

Christopher Grey is CFO and co-founder of CapLinked, an online platform for connecting entrepreneurs and investors. He was a senior executive and managing partner in private equity, finance and banking for 15 years and directly involved in the origination and management of billions of dollars of debt and equity investments in various industries. He founded Crestridge Investments and Third Wave Partners, and was managing director of Emigrant Bank, the nation's largest privately owned bank. He is also a contributor to TheStreet.com.

The impetus for the tea-party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.

If you listen only to the mainstream media and Democratic politicians, you might think the tea party is for “banning abortions for rape victims,” “jailing gays and lesbians,” “deporting all immigrants” or other similarly bizarre and untrue things. As you can read above from the Tea Party Patriots mission statement on their website, the tea party is for three things: Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government, and Free Markets.

Democrats are terrified of the tea party and what it stands for exactly because it is not extreme. It is not bizarre. It is completely rational and mainstream. Most people, if they understood the tea-party beliefs accurately, would agree with them. This is why Democrats are so desperate to lie and distort what the tea party is really trying to do.

The real extremists in this country are Democrats, especially the current leadership in Congress and the White House. Let’s take a closer look at what the Democratic leadership believes.

The Democratic leadership believes that socialism is the best economic philosophy. They believe markets need to be controlled and heavily regulated by the federal government. They don’t even want state or local governments to have much power. They want to centralize as much economic power as possible in Washington, D.C., and at the Federal Reserve. They believe in very high rates of taxation on businesses and individuals to pay for even larger government programs, hiring of government bureaucrats, and income transfers from productive people to unproductive people. They believe the ideal society is one in which the government decides who gets what and what is good or bad for everyone. In other words, people aren’t allowed to decide much of anything for themselves economically.

The Democratic leadership believes that traditional religious beliefs are evil. They want to severely limit the role of traditional religion in daily life and our society. They believe traditional religious people are dangerous, stupid and crazy. They also believe that nontraditional cults, atheism and fringe religions deserve government-guaranteed equal treatment with traditional religions, even if those beliefs are only supported by a small number of people.

The Democratic leadership believes that traditional family values are obsolete. They believe “gay” marriage is equivalent to traditional marriage. They believe marriage itself is not important. They believe government has the responsibility, as opposed to traditional families, to protect and support children and seniors. Their socialist health-care plan is just one example of this, but there are many others. They believe abortion on demand is a fundamental right, even as they oppose the death penalty for murderers.

The Democratic leadership believes taxpayers should pay to support the big unions, big banks and other politically favored organizations. Like in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, or George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the Democratic leadership believes that the unenlightened taxpayers should be forced to sacrifice so that the leaders and other members of the enlightened vanguard – already in control of the state-run industries and infrastructure – can live a life of luxury and privilege. As bankers pay themselves millions per year with taxpayer money and union workers get multimillion-dollar pensions on the taxpayers, ordinary people and businesses continue to suffer in the worst economy since the Great Depression.

The Democratic leadership believes we can devalue our currency, start trade wars and print money to create wealth. The value of the dollar is collapsing. Gold is soaring. Oil is expensive and about double the price it should be based on its fundamentals because of our weak dollar. Inflation of everything, except nonunion wages, is soaring even as short-term interest rates are kept at zero and long-term interest rates are manipulated lower by the Federal Reserve. Government inflation data is mostly distorted or intentionally false, using statistical tricks like hedonic adjustments, substitution effects and allocation changes in the basket of goods and services being measured. The government has a strong incentive to make people believe that inflation is low. Look at the recent announcement for the second year in a row to deny cost-of-living increases on Social Security because there is allegedly no inflation.

This lie of no inflation is also essential to keep foreign investors buying Treasuries at these extremely low yields. Now Tim Geithner and other Democratic leaders are further antagonizing our trading partners with self-righteous and economically absurd proposals that amount to demanding foreigners buy more U.S. goods and services whether they want to buy what we’re selling or not. As Milton Friedman and other real economists have proven over the years, you cannot create wealth by devaluing your currency, printing money or starting trade wars. Democrats don’t seem to think the laws and history of economics apply anymore.

In sharp contrast to the extremely bizarre and destructive agenda of the Democratic leadership, the Tea Party Patriots are promoting common-sense approaches to our problems. The tea party wants lower taxes, less regulation and an end to taxpayer bailouts of failed businesses and unions, reductions in nonessential government spending and entitlements and a more sensible trade and immigration policy that focuses on correcting abuses rather than making unrealistic demands. There is nothing in the tea-party agenda that is extreme by any standard of common sense or reason.

Of course there are individuals in the tea party, or in any large organization, that may be extremists, or stupid, or crazy. No large organization can control every person who is affiliated with it. Democrats, using a tried and true method of propaganda, are trying to demonize the tea party based on lies, half-truths, gossip, scare tactics and innuendo. The media is playing along because they are mostly liberal Democrats themselves. Hopefully, voters are smart enough to see past this left-wing propaganda and recognize the tea party for what it is: A diverse grass-roots organization of regular people who love this country and want to make it a better place.